Deleuze and Law

A collective experiment in the conjunction of law and philosophy

This collection of 11 essays offers insights into Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of law, investigating new forms of politics, economics and society. It explores the features of Deleuze's universal jurisprudence, the mutual becoming of law and philosophy and reveals law as the most progressive and experimental force of the Modern Age.

Key features

Explores the connections between law and other disciplines, including literature, the history of philosophy, political theory and geography

Proposes several entirely new theories of Deleuze’s relationship to law

Contributors are from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and include academics from British, American and Australian law schools

Contents

Introduction, Laurent de Sutter and Kyle McGee1. Immanence, transcendence, and the creation of rights, Paul Patton2. The poetry of black letters: Deleuze and lex amicitia, Peter Goodrich3. Human rights in Deleuze and Bergson’s later philosophy, Alexandre Lefebvre4. On ‘cruelty’: Law, literature, and difference, Penelope Pether5. Law, space, bodies: The emergence of spatial justice, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos6. Institutions and interactions: On the problem of the molecular and molar, Marc Schuilenburg7. The perception of the middle, Nathan Moore8. Rhizomatics, the becoming of law, and legal institutions, James MacLean9. Deleuze and Camus: Strange encounters, Lissa Lincoln10. Cases against transcendence: Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour in defence of law, David SaundersPostscript: A brief reflection on the universality of jurisprudence, Laurent de Sutter and Kyle McGeeNotes on contributorsIndex.

About the Author

Laurent de Sutter is FWO Senior Researcher in Legal Theory at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He also teaches at Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis (Brussels) and Cardozo Law School (New York). He is the author of four books, among which Deleuze: La pratique du droit [Deleuze: The Practice of Law] (Paris: Michalon, 2009) and Contre l’érotisme [Against Eroticism] (Paris: La Musardine, 2011). He is the editor of the ‘Travaux Pratiques’ series at Presses Universitaires de France.

Kyle McGee practices law in the US. He is the author of Bruno Latour: The Normativity of Networks (Routledge, 2014) and co-editor of Deleuze and Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2012).

Reviews

This is the first volume to bring together some of the most authoritative commentators on Deleuze, philosophy and law from both disciplines ... [It] is an important starting point for anyone interested in reflecting on the potential for a Deleuzian philosophy of law.

- James Williams, University of Dundee, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews